Pakistani girls walk path of teen shot by Taliban

Girls face extremists, poverty in pursuit of education

MINGORA, Pakistan - As Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai recovers from bullet wounds in a British hospital, her classmates say they will not let the Taliban extremists who put her there force them to quit school.

"Though we are very sad for our friend Malala, such mean actions would never discourage us and will never keep our attention from getting education," said Rida, a ninth-grade schoolmate of Malala's at Khushal School in Mingora, Swat Valley.

"Education is our right given to us by our religion and no forces can stop us from getting it," says Rida, whose full name was withheld by USA Today to prevent retaliation against her.

Malala's hometown in the lush Swat Valley became the center of Taliban violence in Pakistan after the group pushed its way into power in 2007. Staunch opponents of female education, the Taliban terrorized students and teachers, bombed hundreds of schools and forced many others to close their doors to girls .

But a major offensive by the Pakistan military two years later largely drove the Taliban from the area and allowed girls to go back to their classrooms.

Earlier this month, 15-year-old Malala, an outspoken advocate for girls' education, was shot in the head and neck by the Taliban on her way home from school. The group has vowed to finish her off, saying she had been acting against Islam in her activism.

Even so, the attack on Malala has shown their threat continues. But the girls in her hometown say they can't let the fear of extremists put them off again.

"We saw three bleak years where our schools were torched and blasted and we were forcefully stopped from going to school -- we got education secretly," said Kausar, a 10th-grader at Government High School No.1 in Saidu Sharif, Swat.

The official literacy rate in Pakistan is 56 percent. Literacy rates for women in Pakistan have increased from 15 to 40 percent since the early 1980s. Pakistan's government credits the rise to campaigns to get more girls in school.

Malala became famous for a blog she wrote for the BBC in 2009 under a pseudonym about her oppressive life under the Taliban regime and its repression of education of girls. When she was shot for it, Pakistanis across the political, ethnic and religious spectrum came forward to denounce the Taliban.

In the south of the country, where it is safer for girls to go to school, Malala is considered a hero.

"I want to do what Malala did," said Swaliha Abdullah, a 12-year-old eighth-grader at Eck Eck Government School, a Karachi public school.

In Karachi, girls go to school unhindered by extremists. Instead it is poverty that most affects girls' schooling as well as that of boys.

At Karachi's P and T Government Girls' School, girls in pigtails held in place by red ribbons and in the traditional blue-and-white shalwar kameez tunic and trousers, the everyday style of Pakistani females, peek out of the classrooms as the end of the school day approaches.

"My mom wants me to be a doctor, but I want to be a teacher," said Wajiha Ashfaq, 14, an eighth-grade student there.

Wajiha's father has a government job. He lives in a low-income neighborhood close by and walk to school.

"I have never taken time off school except once when I had fever," boasted Laiba Ashfaq, Wajiha's sister, who is in the fourth grade.

She explains that she loves school and English is her favorite subject. Laiba wants to be a doctor when she grows up.